Accountability

Make a bet against a friend who is doing P90X. That's what I did, and so far I'm in the lead

I post how much I've lost each week on Facebook. There's no way I want to cheat with everyone I know watching my progress! I plan on posting before and after pics eventually. Just not quite yet....the before pics are terrible and I want to make sure I look a LOT better before showing the world where I started from. Vain, I know.

The #1 most effective way is write a check for $300 to $1000 give it to a friend or accountability partner and say if I don't reach this goal you go out and cash it the next day.

In this case the goal should be action based not results based (ie sticking to the diet 100% as opposed to losing a specific amount of weight).

I call it the "Alpo" diet plan. You go buy a can of Alpo, invite your friends over and tell them that if you don't lose "x" amount of weight you will eat the entire can of Alpo. Now thats motivation.

Guaranteed easiest way - I told my mom I was on the diet. Now, everytime I talk to her she asks how my diet is going. Everytime I see her, she comments on the diet, and she also makes me boiled lentils all the time. Nothing like mom to keep you accountable!

So far I have been trying to just be accountable to myself. NOT!! I have a few friends I am considering talking to about it but I am a pretty private person. I am looking forward to reading some more suggestions to thie post...

I did a 6 hour mountain bike race last weekend. As I was riding I heard some kids shouting at a rider behind me saying 'go on Grandad you can beat him!' - I want to be that kind of Grandad in the future. That's a good enough motivator.

Personally, it's about how important is it to me to reach my goals. When it's important enough, I don't really need any extraneous motivators or "accountability supervisors". Every activity/temptation is viewed through the lens of "is this a step toward my goals or a step away?" But I can get super focused when it suits my purposes. If it's only kind of important to you, than you tend to be more easily distracted or tempted to stray from the path or fudge a bit on hitting your marks. As a result, the results are not optimal. And for some, that's more than good enough! It just depends on how hardcore you want to be about things. One thing that I do though, is to tell everybody and anybody who'll listen about what I'm doing and why. That way, I'm putting it out there. I guess everyone around me holds me accountable to a degree. I just ignore the naysayers, or the bike shed building experts. But the most important accountability holder has to be you. Elsewise, what's the point?

Sign up for a race or challenge and raise money for charity. It's a nice mix of fear and embarrassment.

If that's too grand just tell people your doing a race and invite them out to cheer you on too.

When I an dying for or craving something, or don't want to do my kettlebell workout I just say is it worth feeling as bad as you do fat? I always know the answer. I know it is a cliche but truthfully nothing tastes as good as being healthy feels. Plus I tell myself ..hell you can eat it on sunday!!

The best thing i do is not to set a goal, if you start telling yourself ive got to do this now for 1 week or 1 month then normally my brain tells me to rebel.

Instead I do one day at a time and tell myself its a little experiment, I write everything down on my iPhone's dairy as that keeps me motivated. Take pictures every month and seeing the difference keeps me going

Create a rediculous blog with all your bad pictures and lessons learned and make sure everyone on the internet can see it. If you have to explain something (i.e. teach it), you will learn it better. http://talesofafattynamedmark.wordpress.com/

My husband and good friend are also following the SCD. We text, call, email, facebook, etc. each other with inspiration, meal ideas, photos of meals, grocery lists, etc. It's easier to not feel alone!